This Man's Measure
by ImpishTubist
Summary: Sherlock covets Lestrade's skull. Established S/L.


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Beta: Sidney Sussex

Notes: Takes place in the same 'verse as "They're Gonna Be All Right," (about five years later) but can stand alone. I've been a bit behind cross-posting everything between LJ, AO3, and here, so my apologies. Originally written and posted September, 2011. Contains nerdery.

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><p>"You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes…It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull."<p>

-Dr Mortimer, to Sherlock Holmes, in "The Hound of the Baskervilles"

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><p>Cold fingertips dug into his hair, probing his scalp, and Lestrade groaned. He should have known that the moment of peace was too good to last.<p>

"What are you doing?" he demanded of the man sitting behind him.

"Examining your skull," Sherlock replied, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. They were sitting on the detective's bed, Sherlock leaning against the headboard and Lestrade propped up against him, each of them nursing injuries gained earlier that day on a particularly stupid chase - Lestrade, a black eye; Sherlock, a busted lip and bruised ego. John was in the kitchen, last they'd heard of him, chuckling away at the trouble they'd gotten themselves into.

"My skull." Lestrade shifted, and winced as his over-taxed shoulder protested the movement. "I'm afraid to ask why."

"I doubt that will stop you," Sherlock said, lazily tracing a finger around the shell of Lestrade's ear.

"Why?"

"It intrigues me." Sherlock heaved a great sigh through his nose. "I suppose you're banal enough to want cremation or some other such nonsense after your death."

"Er - yeah - that's, well, that's probably the plan," Lestrade stammered, thrown by the odd question. "I haven't thought that much about it. Why - what would be a more acceptable method of disposal for my - ah - remains?"

"Science," Sherlock answered promptly.

Of course.

"Or, more specifically, my scientific endeavors."

"You -" Lestrade wet suddenly-dry lips. Was he seriously having this conversation? "You...want my skull? After my death?"

"That would be preferable to taking it prior to your death."

And damn it, now the bastard was mocking him. Lestrade grabbed the hand threading itself through his hair and pulled it away.

"No."

"You do realize that you won't be needing it?" Sherlock sounded genuinely puzzled.

"Yeah, quite aware, thanks."

He could feel Sherlock frown in confusion. "And you do realize it is statistically more likely that you will die before me? In addition to the age difference, the health problems in your family history include heart disease, diabetes -"

"Yes, thank you, Sherlock!" Lestrade said over him, cutting off his litany. He turned around as much as he was able in order to glare at the detective. "Christ, when the moment's gone with you, it's really gone."

Sherlock sniffed.

"Don't be over-dramatic, Lestrade. I fail to see how talk of a skull impairs one's ability to be affectionate."

Lestrade believed him for a full three seconds before he saw the corner of Sherlock's mouth twitch, signaling his amusement.

"Wanker," he muttered, shifting so that he could once again relax against Sherlock. The detective wrapped an arm around his chest, holding him in place. "You know very well why. Not everyone considers talk of death to be proper 'affectionate' conversation."

"I'm not everyone," Sherlock said, sounding highly offended.

"Yeah, thanks for the reminder, I had no idea."

There was a lengthy pause while long fingers started to rake through his hair again. He knew it was a bad sign; it was always ended badly for him when Sherlock was thinking.

"So -"

"I'll consider it," Lestrade interrupted, even though he intended to do nothing of the sort. He could just imagine it - his skull on Sherlock's mantel, smiling eerily at the man for the rest of his life. Sherlock would probably talk to it - or rather, argue with it. He might even get sentimental and take it to crime scenes.

"Why d'you want my skull, anyway?" he said at last. "I can't believe it's the most extraordinary of specimens."

He felt Sherlock shrug. "It comes from a most extraordinary man; surely there's something there of interest."

Lestrade blinked.

"Er - thanks? Wait -" He leaned forward again and turned to look at the man sitting behind him. "Are you - do you want my skull to try to figure me out?"

Sherlock said nothing but continued to look passively back at him. Lestrade let out a disbelieving laugh and returned to his former position. "You do, don't you? Crazy bastard."

"Of course not, Lestrade, don't be ridiculous," Sherlock said finally, and Lestrade could feel him bristle. "Phrenology is a thing of the nineteenth century - surely you know me to be a better scientist than that."

"Well, why do you want it, then?"

"I still have questions that remain unanswered," Sherlock said firmly. "And, given the fact that we have known each other for ten years and I still have made very little progress on them, it isn't unreasonable to think that the answers will continue to elude me for longer than you remain alive."

Lestrade snorted and shook his head.

"Questions, huh? What could you possibly need to figure out about me that you don't know already? You say it yourself continuously - I'm dull and idiotic and just a touch incompetent. And - what's the other one - 'the best of a bad lot'?"

"Nonetheless," Sherlock pressed, "I admit to being - puzzled as to why you have continued with this arrangement for so long."

"Arrangement?" Lestrade asked, confused for a moment. "You mean - why I _love _you?"

"I believe that's what I just said," Sherlock said irritably. Lestrade gave a huff of laughter.

"Christ, Sherlock, a skull's not going to help you figure that out!"

"I do realize that, Lestrade, thank you," Sherlock said in a long-suffering voice. "But it has always helped me to think out loud and I can think of no better audience for this particular question than your skull."

Lestrade couldn't think of what to say to that and found he was torn between being touched and disturbed. But the silence that followed was a contemplative one on Sherlock's end, and he knew that more would be coming from the detective.

"I'm not a sentimental man, Lestrade," Sherlock said finally, and wasn't that the most obvious statement of the year. "I see no reason to keep useless information in my mind - it creates clutter and prevents me from getting at what really matters. But I should like to think that I would never delete you, and perhaps your skull would serve to...remind me of that fact."

He'd known the man some ten years now, and it still took Lestrade a moment to pick out the true meaning behind Sherlock's cryptic words.

"You want something to remember me by," he realized, and his suspicions were confirmed when Sherlock said nothing.

It was endearing, Lestrade had to admit. But his own mortality wasn't something he generally liked to spend a lot of time thinking about. He didn't want to tell Sherlock that all the time in the world wouldn't be enough - they would always want more, need more, and in the end be left with questions unanswered. And likely Sherlock knew that, but he had never been one to accept anything just because someone told him it was so.

"You've always had a thing for skulls, haven't you?" Lestrade observed quietly as the silence stretched on, maneuvering them gently away from talk of his death. "You seem particularly drawn to them...I've never asked why."

"The skull," Sherlock said after the barest of pauses, threading careful fingers through the mussed hair at the top of Lestrade's head and massaging gently, "is made up of twenty-nine bones. Twenty-nine bones that all come together to form a protective casing around the brain and the structure of the face. The skeleton of the face is actually one of the most complex structures of the human body - it alone is made up of fourteen bones."

"So it fascinates you," Lestrade said as the gentle fingers threatened to lull him to sleep.

"Bones are living organs, Lestrade," Sherlock said into the back of his head, his breath disturbing the short hairs on his neck. "They continually replenish themselves; continually regenerate. They are a complex, living system, and do so much more than just give our bodies structure."

"And the skull?"

"The skull protects the brain," Sherlock told him, "and that is the one thing that makes you, you. Do you see? It's absolutely vital."

"So why not take my brain?" Lestrade muttered, mostly in jest, and then instantly regretted his words. Lord, why was he even putting ideas in the man's head?

"You assume," Sherlock said, and Lestrade could hear the smirk in his voice, "that I only covet your skull."

"Oh, God," Lestrade groaned, leaning his head against Sherlock's shoulder in exasperation. "You want my brain, too."

"One body part at a time, Lestrade. Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"Git," Lestrade muttered, elbowing him sharply in the side. "Right. In that case, tell me a little more about these bones of yours. Or rather, bones of mine."

He could feel Sherlock hesitate. "Pardon?"

"I've put you through enough astronomy lessons to last a lifetime, so let's have it. Bones." When Sherlock continued to sit in dumb silence, Lestrade tilted his head back to look at him. "Aren't you always saying I could stand to learn some useful information, instead of cluttering up my mind with hobbies and football trivia? Go on, then. Examine me. Tell me about my skull, while I'm still around to hear it."

"If you like," Sherlock said finally.

He allowed his hand to travel up Lestrade's left arm and trail over his collarbone - "Clavicle," Sherlock informed him - before coming to rest lightly just under the DI's jaw. He wrapped his long fingers carefully around Lestrade's neck, palm positioned over his Adam's Apple, and applied a little pressure.

"Hyoid bone," Sherlock murmured. "It lies at the base of the mandible - that's your jaw - and the third cervical vertebra. It's the only bone in the body that is free-floating - it doesn't attach to other bones, and is anchored in place by muscles and ligaments."

Lestrade swallowed, feeling the movement against his partner's hand.

"It's not susceptible to easy fracture," Sherlock continued, and his fingers began to dance along Lestrade's neck, "so when it is broken, it can be indicative of strangulation. That isn't always the case, however."

"Adolescents," Lestrade grunted as each touch of a finger sent shivers down his back.

"The bone is still flexible in the young," Sherlock agreed, "because ossification has not yet completed. But it will be complete and whole in you."

The little pinpricks of pressure on his neck disappeared abruptly as Sherlock moved on. He traced a line along Lestrade's jaw - "Mandible," he repeated - and up to his cheek, drifting across the zygomatic arch before traveling to his brow.

"This is - generally - more prominent in males than females," he instructed, and then his fingers drifted around Lestrade's eye. "Yours, going by the shape of your face, will probably be a moderately heavy brow. Your eye orbits, given your ancestry, will likely be angular."

"Is that right?" Lestrade murmured. He was starting to drift as the soothing fingers gently massaged his face.

"Hm. Indeed," Sherlock said. "Data on the eye orbits only exists for three ancestry groups, however. I've always been meaning to rectify that."

His fingers brushed along the side of Lestrade's head - "parietal bone" - before drifting to the back, where they massaged gently at the base of his skull. Lestrade went a little weak at the contact and let his head fall forward as the fingers manipulated the gentle skin. Tingles shot down his spine and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

"Occipital bone," Sherlock breathed, and his then hand passed over the back of Lestrade's head. "Nuchal area - where the neck muscles attach. It's more prominent in males, so yours would be quite pronounced."

His fingers trailed down to the base of Lestrade's neck, and the DI grunted as they dug into the skin.

"The occipital bone joins with the first vertebra, which is known as the atlas," Sherlock told him. "Your entire skull rests on that one bone, and it's a complex joint that allows the head to rotate."

"Atlas," Lestrade mused as Sherlock's fingers worked at the tension in his neck. "The god - ah! - who held the world on his shoulders."

"Precisely."

"You know," Lestrade said, breaking away reluctantly from the soothing fingers, "instead of trying to figure it out on your own - using rather dubious methods - why don't you just ask me while I'm still here?"

There was a heavy moment where Sherlock considered him with the intense stare that indicated he was cataloging something. It unnerved Lestrade to no end when that look was pulled out on him, but he didn't waver in his eye contact.

"Why?" Sherlock asked finally, in a very low voice, and Lestrade knew it wasn't in response to his last question. The DI extracted himself from the firm grip and scooted away from Sherlock.

"Switch," he said, and after a moment of shuffling he held Sherlock tightly against his chest. He leaned his forehead against the back of Sherlock's head, breathing in the scent of tea and antiseptic.

"You want to know why this 'arrangement' works?" Lestrade murmured softly to the dark hair. "Because it's you. Because it's me. Because what we have is made up the good and the bad and the uncertain and all the moments in-between. Because we haven't earned it - no one earns it - but we have fought for it. Because we've made do with what we have, and we built this all by ourselves. Because we weren't looking for it. Because we found each other, and that is wonderful."

He pressed a kiss to the back of Sherlock's head. The detective had gone very still in his arms, and he wondered for a moment if he'd fallen asleep.

It was just as well, he mused with a smile. Best that Sherlock not hear all of that, anyway. He'd probably just think Lestrade daft.

"That was...very sentimental," Sherlock said suddenly, and Lestrade snorted.

"I've had a lot of years to think about it. Don't worry, it won't be a regular occurrence."

"If it were to become a...regular occurrence," Sherlock said finally, "I don't think that I would mind."

"Well, in that case, the next monologue's on you. That one took me years," Lestrade said lightly, squeezing his arm.

"I don't need it to be a monologue," Sherlock said, breaking gently out of Lestrade's grip and turning around to face him. He pressed his lips to Lestrade's, delivering the lightest of kisses, and murmured, "I love you," against the other man's mouth.

Lestrade sat there, stunned, while Sherlock pulled back and regarded him with - of all things - amusement.

"Because until now you never needed to hear the words," Sherlock said, brushing his thumb along Lestrade's lower lip and answering the question in his eyes, "and I never needed to say them."

Lestrade shook his head and gathered the man back into his arms.

"Do you understand now?" he whispered as Sherlock tangled their fingers together, his left hand in Sherlock's right. He didn't notice, most days, the ring on his left finger. He'd grown used to its weight over the years, and thought about it only when it was missing from his hand. Tonight, however, he found that he was particularly aware of the presence of the warm metal.

"Not entirely," Sherlock said, his voice rumbling through Lestrade's chest. The DI buried his face in the crook of the other man's neck and Sherlock sank against him. "But I believe that, perhaps, that is the point. You are you and I am I."

He twisted around to touch his lips to Lestrade's forehead. "That's why it works."

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><p>Final Notes:<p>

-Phrenology is a pseudoscience that once thought measurements of the skull could be linked to a person's character.

-The American Anthropological Association considers race to be a social construct; however, skulls and other bones are still used to determine the ancestry of skeletons found in medico-legal contexts.


End file.
